The Republican's valedictory opinion sets out with passion and clarity the common sense notion that “children are the victims, not the perpetrators, of child prostitution.”

“Children,” O'Neill observed, “do not freely choose a life of prostitution.”

O'Neill's writing springs from the wretched life story of B.W., a 13-year-old runaway claiming to be 19, who approached an undercover Houston police officer one January morning in 2007 and offered to perform a sex act for $20.

No doubt her arresting officer believed the case would be just another imminently forgettable instance of the world's oldest profession running afoul of law enforcement. But three years later, the case became the focal point of O'Neill's landmark opinion that ended the practice of convicting girls under the age of 14 for prostitution at an age when state law acknowledges they are not legally capable of consenting to sex.

After the pubescent B.W. was found guilty of prostitution in juvenile court, her attorneys appealed, arguing she deserved protection by Texas' statutory rape law, which criminalizes engaging in sex with a girl younger than age 17.

While there are some exceptions involving the middle-teen years, no defense exists for engaging in sex with a girl under age 14. B.W.'s attorneys argued that she, a 13-year-old runaway from a foster home living with a 32-year-old “boyfriend,” was the victim in the case. The state's highest court agreed.

For Harris County Juvenile Judge Michael Schneider and Associate Judge Angela Ellis, the tragedy of the B.W. case is this: It's not all that unusual. Presiding over courtrooms where juvenile criminal cases and Child Protective Services cases collide, Schneider and Ellis are all too familiar with children who never had a stable family life and later rebel under the supervision of CPS, becoming runaways and prostitutes.

In fact, it is so commonplace that the two jurists are working with the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department to start a pilot program of a “girl's court,” for young girls whose criminal behavior includes turning tricks, often to survive on Houston's streets. The court will be modeled after other specialty courts — like drug court or mental health court — which offer intensive supervision and therapeutic services.

Recently, the concept “all came together in one case,” Ellis says. A 14-year-old girl from a dysfunctional family ran away from home, and within 48 hours, an older man spotted her in a parking lot and promised to “take care of her.” There was one catch: “She had to help him do that.”

The man demonstrated specific sex acts and told her how much work she would have to do for him. A few months ago, an arrest on prostitution charges landed her before Ellis, who sent her to a therapeutic home. Only after weeks of intensive counseling could the girl begin to see how she had been exploited.

Working with CPS, Ellis was able to find a therapeutic home in a “semirural” setting, lessening the chance the girl would run away before she could receive appropriate counseling and establish emotional bonds with people who could look out for her.

After that, she and Schneider vowed to start the pilot program to “let these girls know there are people in the world who don't have inappropriate expectations of them, who care about them and are committed to them,” Ellis said.

Because Ellis and Schneider hope to provide intensive supervision, the girl's court caseload will probably start with only 10 cases. But its existence represents a tectonic shift in our criminal justice system.